PODCAST · arts
Everyday Shakespeare
by Caroline Bicks & Michelle Ephraim
Hosts Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim are Shakespeare professors and close friends who love to bond over the ways Shakespeare's plays help them through their everyday dramas. In each episode, they go back to Shakespeare's day to bring you some funny, fresh insights into a pressing modern problem. They'll explore popular Renaissance writings – from parenting books to cosmetics manuals – and, of course, plays – and talk about their uncanny connections to our everyday struggles. Whether you're dealing with an aging libido, a pandemic, or a dysfunctional family gathering, you'll feel a little bit better when Bard meets life.Caroline is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, and Michelle is Professor of English at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They've shared their unique brand of Bard-meets-life humor everywhere from the New York Times and the Moth Radio Hour to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and are the co-authors of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktail
Episodes
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A cruise by any other name would suck as much
In this episode, we kick off summer by taking to the sea with Shakespeare. Long before all-you-can-eat buffets, pickleball on the lido deck, and Norovirus outbreaks, Shakespeare was already imagining the pleasures and perils of ocean cruises. From the maritime disaster of his early play The…
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Shakespeare in Purgatory
Shakespeare's great tragedy Hamlet is having a moment. Between director Chloe Zhao's film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's bestselling novel, Hamnet, and Taylor Swift's song "The Fate of Ophelia," two of Shakespeare's most tragic characters have hit pop culture payday. In this episode, we explore...
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Power Couples from Instagram to Alexandria
It's human nature to love the spectacle of a power couple, whether it's a celebrity marriage proposal or corporate heavyweights having some adulterous fun at a Coldplay concert. But how did people get their fix before social media, kiss-cams, and People Magazine? In this episode, we explore...
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Birthdays, and Breechings, and Bed Parties—Oh, My!
We've gone a little nuts when it comes to celebrating our kids' milestones, like their birthdays and graduations. We've even started inventing new ones (hello, Bed Parties??), which means we're buying even more party swag. In this episode, we explore how families in Shakespeare's day celebrated...
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Filmmaker Timothy Bogart on his new film, "Juliet and Romeo"
Why mess with Shakespeare's perfectly good script of Romeo and Juliet? In this interview, Tim Bogart, writer and director of Juliet and Romeo (release date, May 9, 2025), explains his reasons—historical, personal, and otherwise—for getting down and dirty with some wild revisions of Shakespeare's...
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Winter's Tales
From Frankenstein to The Shining, tales of extreme wintery conditions have always been a hit. In this episode, we talk about some of the real-life fun people had when things got very cold in Shakespeare's day—like going to frost fairs on the frozen Thames river—and we discuss some of the…
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"To track, or not to track?"
Thanks to modern technology, tracking your children (and anyone else willing to join your Life360 Circle) has never been easier. But even in Shakespeare's pre-iphone days, people found ways to keep tabs on their kids. Sometimes this involved enlisting your child's friends to spy on him, or…
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Childless Cat Ladies of Yore
We're getting our Season Three Party started by exploring the origins of a terrifying creature: the Childless Cat Lady. Whether she has warts and a broom, or she's selling out concert stadiums, this woman means Trouble. But when and how did this connection between single ladies and their feline...
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James Shapiro on theater, democracy, and the making of an American culture war
In this episode, James Shapiro, award-winning author and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, joins us to talk about his most recent book, The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy and the Making of a Culture War. With his characteristic investigative research...
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Much Ado About Polyamory
These days, everyone seems to be talking about polyamory-- the practice of engaging simultaneously in more than one romantic and/or sexual relationship, with the full consent of everyone involved. According to a recent study, 1 in 9 Americans has tried polyamory, and 1 in 6 would like to try it....
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Shakespeare's Unsung Moms
It's time to bust out the dried macaroni, glitter glue, and home-made Foot Rub "Coupons," because Mother's Day is just around the corner. Mothers are missing from a lot of Shakespeare's plays, but he's still got a lot of moms who are very much alive and kicking (unless they're buried alive). In...
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Ye olde Varsity Blues
Long before Photoshop and the Varsity Blues scandal, wealthy families have been trying to game the college admissions process. In this episode, we explore why affluent families started to outnumber "poor scholars" like Hamlet's friend Horatio during the mid-sixteenth century and how money and...
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"Think me not vain for writing my life"
They may not have called it "memoir," but early modern English authors were producing all kinds of life-writing, from snarky private diaries to published accounts of religious conversion and manifestos on breast-feeding. Whether or not Shakespeare's work contains anything autobiographical remains…
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Reduced Shakespeare with Austin Tichenor
In this episode, we're talking with Austin Tichenor, co-Artistic Director of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, and longtime actor, author, podcaster, and Folger Shakespeare Library blogger. Austin takes us back to the early Renaissance Faire days of the RSC, and tells us about the Company's...
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Shakespeare's Books: Live!
We're kicking off our second season by spotlighting the work of bookmakers and booksellers — in Shakespeare's day and ours. We recorded this episode in front of a live audience at the Brookline Booksmith, a fabulous independent bookstore just outside of Boston, where we took the…
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Staging "History": The Case of Richard III
Ever wonder where the line "My kingdom for a horse!" came from? Shakespeare wrote it for King Richard III when he decided to dramatize England's bloodiest civil war, ending it with the tyrant Richard fighting on foot, abandoned by his horse and all his former followers. It's just one of many ways...
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Lady Macbeth's Fitbit, and Other New Year's Resolutions
For many of us, the New Year means new resolutions about getting in shape. But often the goal isn't just to improve our health: there's a lot of magical thinking at work telling us that shedding five pounds will turn us into happier, more successful people. Shakespeare and his contemporaries…
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Home for the Holidays
Shakespeare wasn't eating leftover Thanksgiving turkey and doing online shopping on Black Friday, but he definitely would have been gearing up for the Christmas season, which included twelve full days of festivities. In this episode, we explore the wild side of Christmas celebrations in...
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Shana Tova with Shakespeare
It's the Jewish High Holiday season, and we're wrapping up our first season with a look back at what Shakespeare and his contemporaries would have known and thought about Jews and their religious practices. Although English Protestants expressed plenty of anxiety and hostility towards Jews,...
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"If music be the food of love ..."
We're excited to introduce you to Play On Podcasts—epic audio adventures that harness the power of live performance. Enjoy this act from Twelfth Night, directed by Christopher Liam Moore and starring the phenomenal Amy Brenneman as Olivia. This slice of Shakespeare's comedy touches on many of the...
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James Shapiro on Shakespeare in America
In this episode, New York Times-bestselling author and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro joins us to talk about his book Shakespeare in a Divided America and his work with the New York Public Theater. Dr. Shapiro explains how and why Shakespeare has been a lightning rod for the American culture...
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What to Expect When You're Expecting
Beliefs about labor, delivery, and postpartum care differ widely between cultures and eras. In this episode, we talk about how these stages were experienced and imagined in Shakespeare's day. We start with an example of a woman writing to her unborn child and then talk about the first...
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Clowning Around with Rachel Dratch
Shakespeare loved to give people a good laugh and had an arsenal of methods to do so. And his humor isn't confined to the plays labeled "comedies"; even the great tragedies deliver moments of hilarity. Actor and comedian Rachel Dratch joins us here to talk about the business of being funny and to...
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Put a Ring on It
When it comes to the stages leading up to marriage, in Shakespeare's day and in ours, there's a recurring theme: the importance of having your commitment witnessed by other people every step of the way. In this episode, we take a look at the often tricky rituals of courtship, engagement, saying…
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"O Bro-meo, Bro-meo"
According to a recent study, American men are in a "friend recession." In this episode we explore ideals of male-male friendship back in Shakespeare's day. Why did they falter, and when did they blossom? We'll look at some compelling examples of true male bonding from Shakespeare's plays, and…
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Staging Race
In this episode, we talk to Dr. John "Ray" Proctor, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Tulane University. Dr. Proctor is an expert on the intersection of race, casting, and the peculiarities and specifics of Identity-Conscious casting practices, especially in Shakespeare. He shares his experiences...
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Party Like It's 1599!
It's June, and the official public health emergency is over. That means it's time to turn up the dial on entertaining! In this episode, we comb Shakespeare's plays in search of advice on how to deal with some timeless party-throwing dilemmas. We'll take a close look at his most unsung beleaguered...
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Let's Talk About Sex
Sex can be fun and exciting, but it also raises all kinds of issues about power, control, and freedom. In this episode, we'll be looking at how people in Shakespeare's day were understanding sexual anatomy, pleasure, and reproduction, and discuss how the debates and anxieties that surfaced back...
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Age Cannot Wither Her
What does Andie MacDowell's dewy skin have in common with Cleopatra's unwithered agelessness? In this episode we tackle the everyday challenges of getting old and explore how people in Shakespeare's day were thinking about – and fighting – the signs of aging. If you couldn't just Google it, how…
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Plague Life
What does an $8,600 GOOP wholeness medallion have in common with a popular plague amulet from 1603? Find out in this episode as we discover the uncanny connections between our COVID-19 experiences and the plague lives of people in Shakespeare's world. We'll talk about how Shakespeare's plays and…
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Coming Soon: The Everyday Shakespeare Podcast
Two Shakespeare professors travel back in time to offer funny, fresh insights into some of your most pressing modern problems. What would the Capulets hoard during a plague outbreak? Could a 16th-century remedy for staying young work for me? (And am I willing to drink the urine of a male child to...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Hosts Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim are Shakespeare professors and close friends who love to bond over the ways Shakespeare's plays help them through their everyday dramas. In each episode, they go back to Shakespeare's day to bring you some funny, fresh insights into a pressing modern problem. They'll explore popular Renaissance writings – from parenting books to cosmetics manuals – and, of course, plays – and talk about their uncanny connections to our everyday struggles. Whether you're dealing with an aging libido, a pandemic, or a dysfunctional family gathering, you'll feel a little bit better when Bard meets life.Caroline is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, and Michelle is Professor of English at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They've shared their unique brand of Bard-meets-life humor everywhere from the New York Times and the Moth Radio Hour to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and are the co-authors of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktail
HOSTED BY
Caroline Bicks & Michelle Ephraim
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Everyday Shakespeare have?
Everyday Shakespeare currently has 31 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Everyday Shakespeare about?
Hosts Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim are Shakespeare professors and close friends who love to bond over the ways Shakespeare's plays help them through their everyday dramas. In each episode, they go back to Shakespeare's day to bring you some funny, fresh insights into a pressing modern...
How often does Everyday Shakespeare release new episodes?
Everyday Shakespeare has 31 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Everyday Shakespeare?
You can listen to Everyday Shakespeare on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Everyday Shakespeare?
Everyday Shakespeare is created and hosted by Caroline Bicks & Michelle Ephraim.
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